


Author . 



mm 



H * 




Title 



m 



C1.3S Et5..^. 
Book ,..r\.35L- 



Imprint. 



»— «7372-l OPO 



:iBii wgiii 



lip 



SPEECH 



OF 



SENATOR PHILANDER C. KNOX 



OF 



PENNSYLVANIA 



AT 



PITTSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA 



NOVEMBER 5th, 1904 



A 



J 



SPEECH 



OF 



SENATOR PHILANDER C. KNOX 



OF 



PENNSYLVANIA 



AT 



PITTSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA 



NOVEMBER 5th, 1904 






,K5 



5 



If it were not for the provision of the Constitu- 
tion which requires the American people once in 
four years to elect a President and Vice President of 
the United States we would not now be closing a 
National campaign. 

A great English newspaper recently said of 
American politics that an election and an issue do 
not always come at the same time. "It may be that 
they do. In 1896, for instance, an election and an 
issue had the rare good fortune to be on the same 
spot at the same time. In 1900, though the election 
punctually put in its appearance, there was. only the 
tail end of an issue waiting to receive it. In 1904 it 
is not too much to say there is just an election and 
nothing else." 

This impartial outside comment upon the situa- 
tion is apt and almost accurate. To it might be 
added the observation that the Democratic party 
seizes the opportunity for a change in government 
administration and asks, for no other well defined 
reason than that the opportunity exists, that the 
people repudiate the party whose policies they ap- 
prove and whose performances they applaud, and 
substitute the party whose performances they con- 



demn and whose policies are erratic, inconsistent 
and unsound. 

We now stand well towards the end of the 
last half of the last year of the eight years of the 
McKinley-Roosevelt administration. They have been 
years of undreamed-of development and prosperity 
at home, and, barring our war with Spain for the 
liberation of Cuba and its sequelae, years of peace 
and amity in our foreign relations. 

What is there to advance to a reasonable man 
to induce him to desire a change? 

Would our prosperity, happiness, honor and 
power been more abundant or more stably fixed 
under other policies than those pursued by the 
Republican party? 

Do you believe the leaders of the Democracy 
are better fitted by temperament, experience and 
wisdom to administer our government? 

As men can answer these questions so should 
they vote. 

I can, in the short time allotted me to-night, 
but touch these great subjects of policies and men. 
As the prosperity and happiness of a people 
depend upon steady and remunerative employment 
a first place must be given to the Republican pol- 
icy of protection which guards and develops our 
industries. To this policy our party stands against 
all comers. We do not think that protection is 
robbery either in theory or fact, as alleged in the 
Democratic platform. 



The benefits of the policy of protection are na- 
tional. The argument for free trade is based upon 
assumptions which cannot be established and which 
the experience of other nations proves to be er- 
roneous. 

Along with the policy of protection there should 
stand high in the estimation of the American people 
the policy of equality of opportunity for all in our 
industrial and commercial life which this administra- 
tion has done so much to advance. Monopolies and 
conspiracies against trade by which a few men ob- 
tained advantages on the highways of commerce, 
which should be open to all alike, have been suc- 
cessfully assailed by President Roosevelt in the 
Courts and in the halls of legislation. 

The Democratic platform says: "We especially 
denounce rebates and discriminations by transpor- 
tation companies as the most potent agency in 
promoting and strengthening these unlawful con- 
spiracies against trade." 

I cheerfully accede to this because it is sound 
Republican doctrine. 

I had the honor to announce in this city in 
October, 1902, that it was the policy of this ad- 
ministration that such nefarious practices should be 
broken up, and they have been almost entirely 
destroyed during the last three years. 

First the Government succeeded in establishing 
in the courts that the Government itself could en- 
join the granting of rebates and it did so effectually 



to the immediate relief of the farmers of the West. 
Next an Act of Congress was passed which made 
it equally unlawful to solicit and receive, as well as 
to grant, unfair advantages of any kind from or by 
common carriers. No law in any country is more 
far reaching in this respect than the one to which I 
refer, and with power in the Government to enforce 
it for the benefit of the citizens and jurisdiction in 
the courts to reach the evil by the swift remedy of 
injunction it is difficult to imagine what more can 
be desired. 

The Government, under President Roosevelt's 
administration, has brought to the test of judicial 
decision many of the practices of shrewd men de- 
signed to defeat the wholesome policy of the law 
to prevent the monopolization and restraint of trade 
and commerce, and it has succeeded in its conten- 
tions thus far. It is a matter of history that within 
the past three years the Republican party has done 
more through legislation and in securing judicial 
interpretation of the law to establish a system of 
law for the proper regulation of interstate com- 
merce and its instrumentalities than the Democracy 
ever accomplished during its existence. 

It is scarcely worth while now to discuss the 
policies of the Republican party either by expand- 
ing upon their demonstrated merits or by insti- 
tuting comparisons with results to the country of 
short periods of Democratic rule. 

The exigencies of a losing campaign have 



driven our adversaries in these concluding days of 
the contest to substantially abandon the attempt to 
convince the people that they stand for anything 
better in the way of governmental policies than we 
do. and we now have the humiliating spectacle of 
a candidate for the Presidency of the United States 
going up and down the land deriding his opponent 
and repeating slanderous tales of such a prepos- 
terous character that the party organs which origi- 
nated them had, until fathered by the candidate 
himself, almost abandoned them for very shame. 

It is perfectly legitimate to challenge the acts 
of President Roosevelt's administration if one does 
not agree with them. There are people who would 
pull down the flag in the Philippines and abandon 
that archipelago which represents to this country 
the blood of the martyred sailors of the "Maine." 
There are those whose indecision and lack of inter- 
national sense would have prevented them from 
seeing and doing their duty by this country and 
the world in the Panama affair. There are those 
who would have been too timid or too politic to 
have challenged the men behind the Northern Se- 
curities Company. There are those, and many of 
them, who would revive the attack upon our fiscal 
policies ; and in respect to all these matters their 
views are entitled to respectful consideration and 
temperate reply. 

But when it is said of Theodore Roosevelt, a man 
who has so concededly kept the "terms of his honor 



precise," that he has knowledge of, connives at or 
abets "the demanding of campaign funds," with 
" compromising with decency in order that sums of 
money may be gathered together," or "with levying 
contributions in Wall Street upon timid and grasping 
industries," then it is indeed time to call his slander- 
ers to account, as in ordinary cases. 

The man who makes these charges, and I have 
used his own words, is the candidate of the 
Democratic party for Presidency of the United 
States, Alton B. Parker, a hitherto respectable and 
respected judge and gentleman, but as a candi- 
date, the product of a compromise between Tam- 
many Hall, William R. Hearst, David B. Hill, 
W. J. Bryan, the solid South and the worst ele- 
ment in Wall Street. He was syndicated for the 
purpose of taking advantage of an alleged adverse 
feeling in business circles towards President Roose- 
velt because he had enforced the provisions of the 
anti-trust law. 

What a pitiful fall it was when this dignified 
gentleman was persuaded to abandon his declared 
purpose of following the illustrious McKinley as a 
model in his campaign, and was induced to repeat 
and enlarge upon the base slanders of degraded 
partisanship. 

Does not every man in America know that the 
hold that Theodore Roosevelt has upon the hearts 
and respect of his countrymen is largely because 
of his love of fair play and his courage to see 



that there is fair play; because in his eyes a rich 
man is just as big as a poor man and no bigger; 
because neither threats nor coaxing could prevent 
him from enforcing the law when the law breakers 
were the richest, most powerful and most influen- 
tial men in the land. 

Let us examine these charges of Judge Parker 
for the purpose of discovering their nature and 
scope and then let us look at the evidence upon 
which they rest and the character of the witnesses 
from which that evidence proceeds. 

Judge Parker's first charge is to be found in his 
speech at Esopus on October 24th. These are his 
words: "These interests (the trusts) have decided to 
attempt to continue the present administration in 
power. Their representatives scolded about the 
President for some months and thus contributed 
their part toward the effort which was assiduously 
made to satisfy the country that the trusts were 
opposed to the present administration. Their action 
being but a play to deceive the voters, the fact re- 
mains the trusts are not now opposed to the con- 
tinuance of the present administration. On the 
contrary it is common knowledge that they have 
determined to furnish such a sum of money to the 
Republican National Committee as it is hoped will 
secure the 'floaters' in the doubtful States for the 
Republican ticket." 

This is a specific allegation of friendly collusion 
between the President and the trusts for the pur- 



10 



pose of securing his re-election, and that as a part 
and parcel of the program of fraud and deceit the 
antagonism between the President and the trusts 
had been simulated to mislead the voters, but 
back of this sham was the fixed purpose of the 
trusts to secure his election through the contribu- 
tion of large sums of money. 

You will note without the necessity of my 
commenting upon it how wholly opposed to this 
statement of Judge Parker and to his allegations 
of fact are the words used by him in his speech 
in Madison Square Garden on the 31st of October, 
or just one week later. 

He abandons the idea of friendly collusion and 
harmony of purpose between President Roosevelt 
and the trusts and sets out a wholly different state- 
ment of facts as supporting his new theory that con- 
tributions made to the Republican campaign fund 
are the results of coercion, forced contribution and 
demand. These are the words of his more recent 
statement, "the spectacle of demanding campaign 
funds now presented to this country is one rightly 
to be regarded of a character to shock the moral 
sense," "you do not belong to that order of busi- 
ness men who levy contributions in Wall Street 
upon timid and grasping industries. You are not 
compelled, on the other hand, to purchase immun- 
ity for some wrong-doing, either , actual or pros- 
pective, or to compound some offense committed 
in the past or contemplated in the future," "the 



11 

whole performance is a shameless exhibition of a 
willingness to make compromise with decency in 
order that sums of money may be gathered 
together." 

. As I have said, Judge Parker's first charge 
against the President is one of wicked and deceitful 
collusion, the second one of infamous blackmail, 
and while they are wholly inconsistent with each 
other, their inconsistency is not so much a matter 
of concern as it is that these allegations should be 
substantiated or the penalty for malicious slander 
meted out to their author. 

Judge Parker says he makes these charges with 
reluctance, but because he knows them to be true. 
If he has any such knowledge he owes it to him- 
self, he owes it to his party, he owes it to his 
country, to produce his proofs. If he can establish 
to the satisfaction of the American people that 
President Roosevelt has conspired with the trusts 
to secure his election, or that by any species of 
duress worked out through the Chairman of the 
National Committee and the Bureau of Corporations 
he has exacted campaign funds for the Republican 
party, or that he has sold indulgences to violate the 
law in the future, or compounded offenses committed 
in the past, he will without doubt make sure his elec- 
tion and have defeated a candidate wholly unworthy 
of the votes of honest freemen. But, my fellow 
citizens, there is no such evidence. There can be 
none. 



12 

It is just as absurd to suppose that these things 
can be true as it would be to suppose that Judge 
Parker can sustain his allegations and for any rea- 
son refuse to do so. 

The President has met these monstrous accusa- 
tions, just as the people of the United States would 
wish him to do, with the dignified scorn becoming 
a man respected and honored enough to receive at 
the hands of the great majority of his fellow citizens 
a unanimous nomination for his exalted office in- 
duced by an appreciation of his honorable career. 

This country has not yet adopted the star 
chamber rule that the burden of proof is on 
the accused. 

What is the reputation of the accusing witness 
for careless and unwarranted statement? 

I cannot more concisely answer this question 
than in the words of an editorial in the New York 
Tribune of November ist, wherein Judge Parker's 
attention is called to the fact — 

"That he has monstrously exaggerated the 
amount of money spent and the number of 
lives lost in governing the Philippines. 

" That he has gravely misrepresented the 
facts as to national expenditures and the 
deficit. 

" That when he accused the administration 
of suppressing department estimates and de- 
clared it was impossible to ascertain how the 



13 

revenues were being expended he was densely 
and culpably ignorant. 

"That when he quoted McKinley on recip- 
rocal trade arrangements he garbled and dis- 
torted the Buffalo speech of September 5, 1901. 

"That in the effort to sustain his original 
blunder in respect to the common law and the 
trusts he smartly cited a decision of the Su- 
preme Court which at once proved to be ir- 
relevant. 

"That the President's pension order, which 
he condemned as an encroachment on the legis- 
lative power and therefore unwarranted by the 
Constitution, was strictly within the law and 
amply supported by precedents, both Republi- 
can and Democratic. 

" That the statement for which he made 
himself responsible, describing the condition of 
things in the Philippines as hideous and dis- 
graceful to this country, has been refuted on 
the highest authority, and that in snatching 
at the testimony of a single witness, whose 
claims to impartiality and importance became 
ridiculous the moment his name was known, 
the late Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals 
caricatured the principles by which he is sup- 
posed to have been guided on the bench." 

It is a matter of common notoriety that the 
Chairman of the Democratic National Committee 



14 



was chosen because it was hoped to carry Indiana 
for Judge Parker by the very methods he now af- 
fects to deplore. It is likewise a matter of common 
notoriety that Messrs. Hill, Belmont, Ryan, Sheehan 
and McCarren, who are Judge Parker's chief backers, 
can only be such in the very way in which Judge 
Parker now professes to attack. It is also a legiti- 
mate deduction from the facts that Judge Parker is 
making this false appeal to cover the fact that he 
and his people are gathering in money which they 
expect to use unstintingly in New York, Indiana, 
West Virginia, New Jersey and Connecticut. 

As Judge Parker is not above such methods 
and has personally been party thereto, I quote from 
the New York Evening Post, one of his most en- 
thusiastic organs, the following from its issue of 
February 6th, 1892 : — 

"In 1888 the scandals about the doings of 
the Aqueduct Commission became so great 
that an investigation was ordered by the Sen- 
ate. It was shown by unimpeachable testi- 
mony that in the campaign for his own re- 
election in 1885 Governor Hill had drawn two 
notes, one for $10,000 and the other for $5,000, 
the proceeds of which had been used to defray 
campaign expenses. The first was drawn to 
the order of William L. Muller, and was in- 
dorsed by Muller and by John O'Brien and 
Heman Clark, the two heaviest contractors for 



15 

aqueduct work. The note was cashed by 
O'Brien and charged to him on the books of 
the firm. The second note was indorsed by 
Miiller and Alton B. Parker, and was cashed 
by John Keenan, the alleged ' boodle holder ' 
in the Broadway Railway scandal. Keenan 
was afterward repaid by John O'Brien. Mr. 
O'Brien contributed $500, Alton B. Parker 
$500 and other friends of the Governor similar 
amounts. // ivas to pay these notes that the 
contract was awarded to Clark & O Brien, 
though their bid was $j 4,000 above the lowest, 
for Mayor Grace and Squire {Commissioner of 
Public JVorks) testified that they were asked to 
vote in favor of that bid in order that the 
Governor s notes might be paid. The testi- 
mony also showed that both notes were finally 
paid by O Brien and Clark, presumably out of 
the ^30,000 profit made on that bid." 



■m^: 






V '■■•■ 



',■>■ 






■^17^-1 



'M-' 












